Broward Fugitive Nabbed In Georgia

Patricia Marie Gifford smiled for the camera while her girlfriend snapped pictures during a New Year`s Eve celebration at the Banana Boat lounge.

A short time later, in the early morning hours of New Year`s Day 1982, Gifford, 18, walked out of the bar on State Road 84 and was never seen again.

Police think she was abducted, raped and killed.

Four days after her disappearance, a chance photo among the developed snapshots showed a man named Dennis Michael Sochor seated behind Gifford at the bar.

Sochor, a twice-charged, once-convicted rapist, was soon named the suspect in Gifford`s disappearance.

But he fled Fort Lauderdale in a stolen pickup truck before police could talk to him.

On Wednesday, after more than four years, detectives finally got their chance.

Sochor, who is now 34, was pulled over in DeKalb County, Ga., last Monday after running a red light, officials in Georgia said Wednesday.

Sochor, a native of Portland, Mich., is being held in the DeKalb County Jail without bond, charged in a fugitive from justice warrant from Broward County, a jail spokesman said.

``Two investigators from our office flew up to Georgia this morning to question him,`` Broward Sheriff`s Office spokesman Frank Poynter said on Wednesday.

Sochor gave DeKalb County deputies a false name when they charged him with driving under the influence and other traffic violations, FBI Special Agent Paul Miller said.

But the deputies were suspicious of him. They sent his fingerprints to the FBI and learned his real identity, Miller said.

Sochor is also wanted in Oakland County, Mich., on charges that he raped, beat and choked a woman he met in a bar in 1979.

In March 1980, Sochor was sentenced to a year in jail and five years probation for the abduction and rape of an Oakland Park woman.

Sochor, who told detectives at the time that his name was Dennis Paul Grant, was released after serving 201 days in the Broward County Jail. Despite a routine fingerprint check, police did not connect Grant with Sochor and the Michigan warrant.